1. Field
The invention is in the field of reloader apparatus for spent shotgun shells and is concerned particularly with improving a widely known and used automatic shotgun shell reloader machine.
2. State of the Art
There are many different types of machines on the market for reloading spent shotgun shells with powder and shot after the detonating primers are first removed and replaced with fresh and unspent primers. A machine that is favored by trapshooters and hunters is the "Hornady 366 Auto" produced by Hornady Manufacturing Company, Grand Island, Nebr.
In that machine as presently manufactured, a turntable is mounted on a stationary supporting base for rotation in sequential steps after being raised into operating position relative to a superstructure and to a circular series or array of operating stations thereof by manually operating a reciprocating handle. The turntable provides a circumferential series of notches for receiving the primer-containing, detonating heads of a corresponding series of spent shotgun shells, which heads rest firmly but slidably on the stationary supporting base with the tubular bodies of such shells upstanding, fluted open ends uppermost, for passage below the series of operating stations in the superstructure. Sequential moving of the handle will raise the turntable and advance each spent-shell-receiving notch therebelow from one operating station to a subsequent operating station of the superstructure. An entry station to the side of the series of notches and leading thereinto at the first operating station of the series enables the operator to resize the detonating head of each spent shell and to punch out the used primer therefrom immediately prior to the feeding of such shell into the turntable, and a cam arrangement associated with the final operating station of the series pushes the completely reloaded shell out of the turntable and over a dropout hole in the base.
At the first operating station of the series, a second punch insures that the spent primer is removed from the resized detonating head of the spent shell. Immediately thereafter, a fresh primer is dropped, by gravity from an elongate, vertically positioned supply tube constituting the second operating station of the series, into one of a series of receiving openings in the turntable that alternate with the head-receiving notches so as to be dropped therefrom into a position for filing the punched-out opening of the detonating head of the spent shell in the immediately subsequent notch of the turntable. A measured charge of gun powder is dropped into the fluted open upper end of the spent shell at the next station, a wad is inserted and compressed at the next station, and so on through the other stations of the series until the upper open end of the refilled spent shell is crimped closed and the completely loaded shell is dropped through the extraction hole and into a suitable receiver.
The primer supply tube of the previously described machine is of metal and holds a column of some sixty primers. The person doing the reloading must keep track of the number of shells loaded in a continuing working of the machine, stop the machine when the primers in the supply tube have been used up in the continuing reloading operation of the machine, and then refill the empty primer tube with a new supply of unused primers. Refilling is carried out by use of a filling device supplied with the machine.
Since most users of the machine load many spent shells at a single sitting before the machine, the necessity of periodically refilling the primer supply tube constitutes annoying interruptions in the work. Moreover, the metal tube hides the descending column of primers in the tube and requires undue concentration to determine when continuing operation of the machine should be halted to prevent defective reloaded shells minus primers.